Studying genome-wide DNA polymorphisms to understand Magnaporthe-rice interactions: Keynote paper from 18th Australasian plant pathology conference 2011

Rice blast caused by an ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is the most devastating disease of rice worldwide. Thus understanding of the molecular mechanisms of Magnaporthe -rice interactions is crucial to devise efficient means of disease control. The availability of whole genome sequences of both M. oryzae and rice enables us to analyze their DNA polymorphisms on the genomic scale for the purpose of association genetics as well as for population genomics analysis. Studies on the association between phenotypes-DNA polymorphisms allowed us to isolate three M. oryzae AVR genes, AVR-Pia , AVR-Pii , AVR-Pik/km/kp as well as a rice R -gene, Pia . Population genomics addresses the patterns of DNA polymorphisms to identify the genomic regions under natural selection, a potentially useful tool to isolate the genes involved in plant-pathogen interactions. Recent progress in next-generation sequencing technologies predicts that these approaches would be commonly used to elucidate various host-pathogen interactions.